Hi. I'm going to build a quiet PC and would like to do a sanity check here. I used to build computers for myself and friends but that was years ago and I am seriously out of date on current components. I didn't care about quiet back then either but now I do and it is a new concept to me. I just want it to be quiet and reliable and run full time. One difference with this build is it will not have a case but will go on the wall similar to the picture below of one of my current PC's. (Yes, mine are all this old which is why I want a new one)Cooling seems more important than it used to be and I don't know if everything being open is good or bad for that.

These are the parts I am thinking about now but I am VERY open to suggestions.CPU - Intel i5-4570KMB - Asus Z87-APSU - Seasonic X-560 or something smaller and fanless?CPU Cooler - ?? fanless?RAM - 8 or 16GB of ??SSD - Samsung 128GB for OS and Samsung 256GB for programs and existing NAS for storage.

I don't do any demanding gaming. The monitor is 1920x1200 but I think on-board Intel graphics should be good enough for me. I would like to go fanless but I would add a CPU fan if needed for cooling and keeping the PSU stable when the system goes to a sleep state.I probably will not overclock, at least not right away, but would like to keep the possibility open, might try undervolting.

(Looks like I can't attach a file so no picture - but it is just the parts mounted on a fiberboard and hung on the wall)

Let me try to answer some of your many questions (indeed). First of all, you would better go with a rig WITH case if you are mainly concerned with noiseless build. I don't really have expertise in this realm but my understanding is that a rig with case diminishes fan noises from CPU fan and case fans and makes the (cooling) airflow inside the rig more efficient, which in turn implies less overall noise.

You have to decide whether to overclock it or not. A few years ago, I also could not decide it and bought a P67 motherboard for my Sandy Bridge. In retrospect, I never overclocked my rig and I realize that I should have bought a non-overclocking inexpensive motherboard at that time. If you are not intent on overclocking, just by B85 motherboard, considerably cheaper than P87 one. I prefer Asrock motherboards due to their fancy fan control applications.

I would buy i5-4430 in lieu of i5-4570K to save money and electricity as well. I think Intel HD4600 should be more than enough for you if you are not a heavy-gamer.

My last point. It seems to me that Haswell CPU leads to lower idle temperature as compared with previous generations because of its lower clock frequency in idle state, which means that you can have lower fan speeds in idle state.

Thanks for the reply. I will consider the i5-4430. The stock performance is actually pretty similar but it would mean giving up the possibility of overclocking of course and it is only $30 cheaper and it looks like both the 4430 and the 4570K have a TDP of 84W. The main savings appear to be in the motherboard and there are compromises there too. I'm still leaning towards the 4570K.I really want to go caseless. If it ends up being fanless it should be quiet with or without the case so I'm going to keep going that way for a while more.I just have to find a way to cool the CPU in open air. Some of these big fanless heatsinks seem like they should do the job. I just have no experience with any of them.

You can get a cooler with a low rpm fan. You won't hear the fan over your ambient room noise and it will cool a hell of a lot better than ANY passive solution. Also, the idea of overclocking + passive cooler is....stretching the limit of a decent thermal solution.

PSU: You're going to be using around 100W with that system so a 560W PSU is totally over the top. If top performance is critical and money is no object then go for a 400W fanless PSU or save money and go for a PicoPSU and external power brick setup. A 150/160W would be good. This will go better if you are running caseless.

Motherboard: Why do you need a full size ATX motherboard when you're not going to be putting ANY cards in it? At least go for MicroATX, saving a little money, space and power. Alternatively you could save a lot of space and run MiniITX. This would be much better should you chose to run caseless or passive.

Case: I wouldn't do entirely caseless unless you're trying to make some kind of design statement. A barebones test station arrangement is one solution for some people but they're not very space saving and offer little in the way of EMI protection. If you're able to drop to MicroATX or MiniITX your choice of cases changes greatly and a fully passive setup can be achieved more easily in a case by focusing rising heat. Alternatively build yourself a simple case to do this from plywood. You might also want to consider heatsink cases like those from Streacom which are intended to run entirely fanlessly and look way better than a tangle of wires.

PSU - the place I was looking at had the 560 watt one as their smallest one but I see there is a 400 watt fanless one by Seasonic so that looks good to me.

Motherboard - great idea, I'm going to go with a mini-ATX. I guess I picked a full ATX because I always have, not a good reason by any means but that's all I've got.

Caseless - yes, a design statement would be a fair description. The parts are assembled neatly on fiberboard and the whole thing hangs on the wall above the desk. It has dowel standoffs that keep it about an inch away from the wall and strategically located, routered slots in the fiberboard and all the wires go out of sight behind the fiberboard. The optical drives have supports that hold them pointing straight out. I think it looks good and I want this new one to be the same. I could always put it in a case in the future if I had to.

After reading more about overclocking the Haswell and the hassles involved I am going to listen to ggumdol and go with the i5-4430.Now the parts list looks like thisCPU: i5-4430CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U12SPSU: Seasonic SS-400FL2MB: Asus H87M-ESSD: Samsung 840 Pro or EVO 256GB

RAM: I need education here - does the memory latency matter anymore if one is not overclocking? It used to be important for system performance but now all I can find to read about is overclocking and more overclocking, nothing about the effect of low latency. Can you even set the memory timing on an H87 motherboard? I would buy some good low latency RAM if it will perform better but if it doesn't matter why bother.

SSD: Unless you have a demanding application, I don't think you'd notice the difference in performance between the 840 and 840 Pro. The Evo looks great...but it's new...might want to let others "kick the tires" for a bit.

RAM: Intel CPUs are pretty indifferent to RAM. The sweet spot sems to be DDR3 1600 CAS 9. You might get tiny bits of gain on the GPU performance by going to 1833...but again, probably wouldn't notice...same with CAS7/8. And, if you need to tweak memory timing to increase GPU performance, that's the sign for you to buy a graphics card.

It's probably best to find/read reviews on your specific mobo and see if the memory can be tweaked. Some do, some don't.

Wow, the Qualified Vendors List of memory for Asus H87M-E does not give a lot of confidence in their data. They only have 5 listings for 16GB of DDR3-1600. Two of them from Kingston and three from AData. I can't believe there are not others. They also have one choice for 64GB of DDR3-1866 that uses 8x8GB DIMMS. It's kind of difficult to put 8 sticks into 4 slots without using power tools. No, they do not give me much confidence at all. I think I will ignore them and get what I want like everybody else does.

I'm glad that you've decided to take my advice on CPU. The truth is that the differences between i5 and i7 Intel CPUs are negligible for most users, even more so for casual gamers (FYI, I don't game at all). If you buy higher-clocked CPU, you obtain some very slight gain in performance yet incredibly higher temperature at the same time, which in turn demands pricy CPU-coolers.

Some random thoughts on your questions.

You can set memory timing even on B85 motherboards, not to mention H87 and Z87. There is nothing to worry about it. FYI, I have been using only Asrock motherboards for years due to their fan control functionality combined with A-Tuning. It is perhaps quite surprising that, contrary to widespread belief, most motherboard makers are now almost indistinguishable. Even motherboards with different model numbers (B85, H87, Z87) are so if you are not intent on overclocking.

Just buy the cheapest 1600 memory, 8GB or even 16GB. CAS does not matter at all for 99.9% of all users. Amazon UK delivered Kingston memory to me (in Sweden) at the lowest price a few months ago. The performance variation with CAS exists only in benchmark websites, such as Anandtech, non-existent for most users.

Perhaps, you need to invest a bit amount of time in comparing SSDs. I bought Intel 330 180GB due to its acclaimed reliability. An intriguing point is that I bought this 25nm SSD at around 1000 SEK (Swedish Crown) at the beginning of 2013, but it seems the lowest price now in Sweden is over 1300 SEK presumably due to users' preference for 25nm SSD. Perhaps, it not that timely to spend too much in SSDs. Just my 2 cents.

Hi,I want to thank you for that advice. I feel good about the CPU. The more I read about fighting the 'Haswell heat', the more I wanted to avoid it. I just want it to be quiet and not too hot.

I already ordered everything except for the RAM and the OS and I will do that soon. I think you are right about the RAM too. The high end stuff seems to be for overclockers and benchmarkers. One question though, why not get DDR3-1600 that is rated for 1.35V? It should run cooler than the stuff rated for 1.5V or 1.65V. Why wouldn't everybody want the lowest voltage memory available? - provided it is still reasonably priced.Does the MB automatically recognize the memory and run at 1.35V or is that something I set? (Either using XMP or not)

For SSD's I went with the Samsung 840 Pro's. They use MLC like Intel does so they are supposed to last longer too. I got a 128GB for $129(840 SEK) and a 256GB for $230(1500 SEK). That was from Amazon. The 180GB Intel 330 was $200(1300 SEK).

I'm going to use the 128GB for the OS and software(C: drive). I'm going to use the 256GB one for all my stuff(D: drive). That is what I'm used to except my D: drive has always been a hard drive. I'll see if I can wear out the SSD in a few years - maybe some people could but I sure doubt if I will. It will be backed up to disk over the network anyhow. To help preserve it the browser cache will go to a RAM drive along with anything else I find that gets written to a lot and has no particular value. The database data files will live on disk and I might think of other simple ways to avoid excessive writing to SSD.

To help preserve it the browser cache will go to a RAM drive along with anything else I find that gets written to a lot and has no particular value. The database data files will live on disk and I might think of other simple ways to avoid excessive writing to SSD.

There's no need for that. You can do it if you want, but i wouldn't bother. Since you do backups and have a good warranty, why bother with sparing SSD writes? Statistically it would take more years than your whole system's lifetime and another one on top to reach critical write counts.

Your point is valid and I was being a little tongue-in-cheek about wearing it out. I even said I doubt if I ever would. However I do like the idea of the cache going away every time I reboot, which is typically about once every couple weeks. It is very little bother to send the cache to a RAM drive. Actually much less bother to set this up once with a symlink than it is for me to periodically go dump that stuff manually like I do now. I use Chrome mostly and I never have liked the default location for the temp files like cache and watched videos. Why pollute the C: drive with that stuff? Plus I get the bonus of faster browsing with cache on RAM, although cache on SSD would also be faster than cache on disk like I have now.

It is even less bother for the database files because they are already on the network storage. I play around with data acquisiton cards and can generate lots of writes on extended runs.

There will be room for the RAM drive because I'm going to get 16GB of RAM which is a big step up from what I have. Some would call it overkill but I seem to like overkill for some reason. I remember when RAM was very precious so it just feels good to have more.

You don't happen to know how to get Chrome to look somewhere other than the c: drive for profiles? I saw a switch that can be put after the executable..but it didn't work for me. I'd really like to get the profile data inside my encrypted partition instead of hanging out there in the windows user data folder.

Do something like this:C:\{path to Chrome.exe} --user-data-dir="D:\{path to your stuff}"

Or use --disk-cache-dir to only change the cache directory, but it seems you want to move more.

These switches aren't perfect because they only work when you start Chrome using that way of starting it. If Chrome is your default browser and you don't have any instances of Chrome open already and you click a link in an email or something it probably won't find your stuff.

Chrome has tons of command line switches. Try a search for 'google chrome switches'. Of course all of them only work when you start Chrome using that command.

You could put the switch in the Registry key - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ChromeHTML\shell\open\commandThat should take care of other ways of opening it. (you might have to create the key)

Another way (which is what I'll be doing) is to use mklink (if your OS likes mklink). Google knows all about mklink. This makes a symbolic link and is independent of how Chrome is started, actually independent of anything Chrome. This makes the file system put your stuff in a different location without the application even being aware of it.

One note - don't put all your stuff on a RAM drive or any volatile memory, only stuff like cache and watched videos, or your settings will go away. Putting it in a non-volatile encrypted location should work fine.

I'll give it a shot, thanks. I tried something like this before and failed - the sites I looked at listed the switches, but failed to give an implementation example...just assumed the user already knew how to implement. I needed something less cryptic

This one uses 3 switches. The path to Chrome may be different. The first part in quotes starts Chrome, then a space, then a URL to the Google search page, then a space, then a switch to force a new window and not a new tab, then a space, then a switch to get rid of the double spacing in the Chrome menus, then a space, then the switch to the new user data location, then the equal sign with no spaces, then the path to the new location in quotes.You have to include the quotes even if there are no spaces in the path because this isn't really a path. It is a string representation of the path and has to have string delimiters.

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